The next few days were spent looking up former colleagues to announce the news.
“I’m retired,” I told them. “The quest is dead.”
“I can’t believe it,” Jess responded when he heard. He’d already given up the dishwashing business and was now working in a Portland video store. For ten years, he’d only known me as a pearl diver. In fact, to almost everyone who knew me, I was “that dishwashing guy.” Now all that was over—and what a relief that it was. But the feeling wouldn’t last long.
“What are you gonna do now?” Jess asked.
“Good question,” I said.
I was broke and, worse still, just as clueless about finding nondishwashing work as I’d been before the quest began.
And so, like a punch-drunk boxer who didn’t know better than to remain retired, I slunk back into the Paradox.
“Dishwasher Pete, I heard you retired!” Caitlin exclaimed. “Too bad, ’cause we could really use you right now.”
The café’s current disher—an art student—was a dud in the suds. Meekly I admitted I could use the cash and decided to take one last job. The kid was promptly canned that night and I started the next morning.
For the next six weeks, I dished. In the meantime, I made arrangements to begin school at the state university in San Francisco and to rent a room in my sister’s apartment.
Finally, one Sunday I was working what I vowed would be my final shift in a too-long dishwashing career. On that afternoon, as usual, my shirt was drenched in sweat and my back ached, but I was completely caught up. Every dish was washed and put up. The counters and dishmachine were wiped down. The garbage was taken out. I’d even scrubbed the mold out of the bus tubs, something that hadn’t been done in ages—if ever.
I took a seat on a stool at the counter and Caitlin opened a beer for me.
“Your last day, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said.
“We’ll miss you around here,” she said. “You’re the best dishwasher I’ve ever seen.”
This was hardly the Waikiki Beach grand finale I’d often fantasized about—well, except for the part about the beer.
There was little to celebrate. Though I was relieved to be done for real this time, I had regrets. All those years, all those jobs, all that work—and still, I hadn’t dished in all fifty states.
Caitlin walked away to take an order. When I finished my beer, I got up to leave.
“You’re not leaving already, are you?” she asked.
The clock read 5:00. My shift was officially over.
“C’mon, it’s your last day!”
She opened me another beer.
Again she went off to deal with a customer. While still standing, I downed the beer, then headed for the door.
“See ya later,” I called out to Caitlin and the cooks.
No one heard me.
As I rode off on my bike, the afternoon sun dried the sweat from my shirt. I was five blocks away when I realized I’d forgotten to kiss the dishmachine good-bye. But I rode onward. It wasn’t worth turning back for.